Butterfly Heart

Olive oil glazes onions & garlic diced

(tears in the chopping)

sizzling in the cast iron pan

(tears for the fragrance)

waiting for dinner

he visits the garden

(tears of the loss)

Yellow powder on his fingers

like silentsmelling curry

Flightless

he  pressed her wings too hard

and she flutters

Helpless

Robert Frost Reads at Kennedy’s Inauguration

New England

Cold, taciturn creaking birches

yellow leaves gathering in the chimney’s elbow

 outside my window

I remember the way the wind blew through the microphone like thunder

And tossed his white hair across ruddy cheeks

And his voice had that same whispered flutter

The pages flapping, holding on for one last show

While snow threatened

Long Remembered

Speaking freeform

origami shapes

without ink

her fingers work

her mind’s words into a private

Gettysburg Address

with as much irony as

 “The world will little note…” 

this note

this folding of frustration

this crease of concern

this tear of transition

“Perhaps,” I say

as edges

 seek sanctuary in boundaries